Between Russia and Estonia: narratives of place in a new borderland

Abstract

The Russian–Estonian border has undergone radical changes in the past two decades – from an integrated borderland between two Soviet republics to a border between nation-states and the new EU external border. Until the present day, it is a discursive battlefield that reflects the difficult relations between Russia and Estonia after the restoration of Estonia's independence. While much research has concentrated on antagonistic projects of identity politics and state-building from a top-down perspective, this paper asks how people living in the borderland make sense of the place they live in and negotiate shifts in the symbolic landscapes. Based on life-story narratives of Russian-speakers, it analyzes different ways of narrating and framing place and argues for a consideration of the plurality and ambivalences of place-making projects on the ground. Furthermore, it argues for a more balanced account of continuity and discontinuity in memory narratives by taking into account how the socialist past continues to be meaningful in the present. As the interviews show, memories of the socialist past are used for constructing belonging in the present both by countering and by reproducing national narratives of boundedness.

Keywords:

• place
• memory
• border
• Russia
• Estonia
• Russian-speaking minority

Acknowledgements

I thank Michael Pickering, Sabina Mihelj, Libora Oates-Indruchová, Pawas Bisht and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Notes

1. For an overview cf. Troebst (2005), Müller (2002) and Ebenshade (1995).

2. By Russian speakers, I refer to ethnic Russians as well as to other ethnic groups, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Jews, etc. It has been argued that Russian language has become the marker for a new group identity in the Baltic States which is distinct from ethnic Estonians but which unites different ethnic groups and religions on the basis of a common language (Laitin 1998).

3. There are apparent similarities to the German case and the asymmetric nature of the transition: In the face of the reunification, Eastern Germans did not say who they were but (to a greater extent than Western Germans) had to renegotiate the meaning of the past in order to adapt to present-day circumstances (cf. Berdahl 1990; Glaeser 1999). Likewise, Russian-speakers have been actively involved in making sense of the societal changes.

4. Such an approach builds upon recent works in geographical and anthropological theory which conceptualize places as contested and on-going constructions which do not have a homogeneous identity (exemplary works are Gupta and Ferguson 1997; Massey 1994, 2005; Cresswell 2004 for a summary in the field of geography).

5. Cf. Onken (2010) and Smith and Burch (2012) for notable exceptions which point into this direction.

6. In comparison to other places with multiply determined history, local politics of memory in Narva take place on a relatively small scale and have not really “heated up”. Actors who are seriously interested in local history are few, which is reflected in the lack of literature on the subject. Unlike Tallinn and Tartu, there is no book publication offering a full account of Narva's history.

7. The interviewees did not form a homogeneous group but differed in their socioeconomic status, their educational level as well as political attitudes.

8. Interview with Evgenii, b. 1944, 8 November 2011.

9. Interview with Nadezhda, b. 1966, 18 January 2010.

10. Interview with Elena, b. 1933, 9 November 2011.

11. Interview with Svetlana, b.1951, 17 January 2010.

12. Interview with Evgenii, b. 1944, 8 November 2011.

13. Indeed, especially in the first post-war years, there was a constant lack of housing for the workers who came to Narva. In 1956, every inhabitant only had 5.3 square meters at his or her disposal (Konchenovskii 1991, 227) and also later people often had to wait for several years until they received a flat on their own.

14. Interview with Tamara, b.1955, 31 October 2011.

15. Biographical research in Estonia has analyzed in greater detail experiences of the transition (Aarelaid-Tart and Bennich-Björkman 2012). In this context, Aarelaid-Tart has interpreted narratives of Russian-speakers as indicators for a “cultural trauma” in the making. Although cultural trauma might be a useful concept for characterizing the social classification of experiences of collective suffering, I think that the concept should not be overextended by applying it equally to all ethnic groups in Estonia (Aarelaid-Tart 2006). Using it to characterize the experiences of Russian-speakers disregards the social context and asymmetries in who qualifies as a trauma victim.

16. There is a range of sociological studies analyzing the status loss among Russian-speakers and the subsequent reconsideration of identities (for an early example, cf. Laitin 1998). Recently, scholars have analyzed the differentiation within this group while at the same time pointing to the persistence of older mind-sets (Lauristin and Heidmets 2002; Vihalemm and Kalmus 2009).

17. Interview with Anton, b.1965, 25 October 2011.

18. Interview with Mariya, b. 1943, 19 November 2011.

19. Interview with Evgenii, b.1944, 8 November 2011; interview with Elena, b. 1933, 9 November 2011.

20. Interview with Ekaterina, b. 1946, 10 October 2011.

21. Interview with Sergei, b.1939, 13 October 2011.

22. Interview with Ol'ga, b.1949, 22 January 2010.

23. The supply situation and living standard in Narva was much better than in the places where most of the Russian-speaking newcomers came from. Also in the first post-war decade, when Estonia's North-eastern region was considered the least developed in the whole republic, people from Russia, Ukraine and Belorus moved there as WWII had left even greater destruction and famines in their former homes (Mertelsmann 2004).

24. The Russian town of Ivangorod, which is located only across the bridge from Narva, used to form one social space with Narva sharing among others a public transportation system, canalization and water supply, and work places.

25. Interview with Svetlana, b.1951, 17 January 2010.

26. Interview with Anton, b.1965, 25 October 2011.

27. Interview with Anton, b.1965, 25 October 2011.

28. Interview with Anton, b.1965, 25 October 2011; interview with Tamara, b.1955, 31 October 2011; interview with Nina, b. 1972, 14 November 2011.

29. Interview with Ekaterina, b. 1946, 10 October 2011.

30. Interview with Tamara, b.1955, 31 October 2011.

31. Tannberg, for example, states that after Stalin's death, Soviet inspectors who came to Narva criticized that too little attention was paid to Estonian national specificities and that the local party committee did use Estonian language in their political work (2007).

32. In the official accounts, framing Narva as an Estonian town could even turn the relations between Narva and neighboring Ivangorod in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, both Russian-dominated towns, into a “true embodiment of the friendship of the Soviet peoples” (Kann 1979, 264).

33. Interview with Nina, b. 1972, 14 November 2011.